"Slide down my cellar door" --> "most beautiful word" myth?

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Geoffrey Nunberg <
nunberg at ischool.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> cellar door


Was this everywhere a sloped, double-doored, wooden structure attached to
the outside of a house? It covered the stairway that led down to the actual
cellar door - "basement door" in St. Louis -  or was this the situation
only in St. Louis?

In StL BE, "coal cellar," but not simple "cellar," was also used for a
basement and "coal shed" was used in addition to "garage." Coal was indeed
stored in basements / coal cellars, but only cars were kept in garages /
coal sheds.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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